LEBANON The Maronite patriarch takes aim at enemies who ‘do not want a Christian president’

The cardinal spoke again about the difficult process of choosing Aoun’s successor. Five parliamentary sessions have already ended in deadlock. The fracture – although he does not name it – with Hezbollah deepens more and more. The disagreements on article 49. The Lebanese patriarchs and bishops launch a special commission of “Truth and Reconciliation”.

Beirut () – The suspicions raised by the Maronite Patriarch in his homily at last Sunday Mass are serious, and intended to provoke discussion. The cardinal spoke of the enemies of Lebanon “who do not want to elect a president, and furthermore consider the fact that he is a Maronite Christian not necessary or of relative importance” according to tradition and the Constitution. The mandate of President Michel Aoun (31 December October) expired two weeks ago and Parliament has still not been able to choose a successor.

We would like – the head of the Maronite Church summed up – that the president was elected by consensus, but the head of state “that we want is someone who defies all those who defy the Lebanese and Lebanon, and who frustrates all the hidden and visible efforts to distort the national and historical identity” of the country of cedars. With these words, Cardinal Raï has described the portrait of a specific adversary “with multiple loyalties” that, according to observers, ends up corresponding to Hezbollah, the large pro-Iranian Lebanese movement that he continues to attack even without explicitly naming it.

“We will not allow their specificity, their identity to be destroyed. [del Líbano] and its pluralism, and everything that represents in this Orient a homeland that has been a safe national refuge for Christians as well as for everyone else […] In the context of a democratic and civilized nation. And it was on these noble goals that Lebanon took shape in 1920 and will continue to be founded on them.

“We will not deny the sacrifices that Lebanon and all Lebanese have made, nor the sacrifice of the martyrs who fell to defend – he continued – this model of civilization and to safeguard national pluralism”. In the course of his homily, he also did not spare attacks against those who “invent justifications in each presidential election to control its development”, when in this sense “the Constitution is clear”.

Controversy over art. 49

The Maronite patriarch was referring to the “controversy” over the interpretation of art. 49 of the Constitution, which establishes that in the second round the head of state can be elected by an absolute majority of the deputies (65 out of 128) and no longer by two thirds of the voters, as in the first round (that is, that is, 86 deputies out of 128). He believes that in the second round the quorum required for the election should change, which is precisely what the Speaker of the House, Nabih Berry, leader of the Shiite Amal movement, refuses to concede, demanding that a quorum of two thirds of the deputies. Referring to the five sessions that have already been held to elect the president, the patriarch considered that the only way to elect a new head of state is with “successive daily votes” accompanied, in parallel, by “consultations between parliamentary blocs.”

On the other hand, given the continuing impossibility of choosing a successor by consensus and capable of facing the imperative of a sovereign Lebanon, the head of the Maronite church has once again called for an “international congress” to be held under the tutelage of the ONU. “The United Nations, as well as any country that considers itself a friend of Lebanon, is interested – the cardinal insisted – in holding that congress.”

“Those who make history are the parliamentary groups and no other entity,” said the Jafarite mufti Ahmad Kabalan, close to Hezbollah, on the same day of the patriarch’s mass, almost as a counterweight to his words. “The international congress – he responded, albeit indirectly, to the Maronite primate – dilutes Lebanese sovereignty […] that’s why the solution […] It only happens through Parliament, and not through the intervention of an international congress”.

Earlier, on November 11, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah had declared that his party wants a president “who does not betray the Resistance, who does not conspire against it and who does not stab it in the back.” Obviously, by the term “Resistance” he refers to his own party.

“Truth and Reconciliation”

At the same time, last week the Assembly of Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops of Lebanon (APECL) commemorated – during its 55th session, from November 7 to 11 – the 25th anniversary of the Apostolic Exhortation “A new hope for Lebanon”. The theme of this session was “the purification of memory”, as requested by Pope John Paul II in said exhortation. To this end, APECL has decided to create a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”, made up of “wise men” who will have to contact all Lebanese parties -whether religious, political or civil- with whom to prepare the ground for carry out this work on memory.